Roger Bothwell

I love cold pizza for breakfast.  You know – those pieces that are left over from the night before and have been on top of the fridge overnight to keep them away from the dog.  They are so good.  They aren’t floppy any more.  They are nice and stiff and only require one hand to hold.  They have all the necessary ingredients.   They have grains in the bread, dairy in the cheese and vitamins in the onions, green peppers and tomatoes.

There are certain things that just get better with age.  Some people age well.  Their wisdom, kindness and understanding more than make up for the wrinkles and lack of hair. The story of Jesus gets better as the years go by.  It mellows with meaning as we grow to more thoroughly grasp its importance and the unselfish love that under-girds its power. When I was little I loved the idea of going to heaven because of the goodies, which were mansions, streets of gold, petting lions, etc.   Now, it isn’t so much about material things as it is about maintaining the companionship and love of friends and family.  It’s about safety and comprehending the mysteries of existence, which can be totally baffling.

I like old cars, old music, old books and old people.  Old cars I can understand.  I can open the hood and tell what the parts are.   The old music I can enjoy and not find annoying.  Many old books grapple with the mysteries that will be opened to us. I can empathize with old people and their aches and pains, their concerns over grandchildren, and their endless lists of doctor’s appointments. But, best of all, I never tire of the old, old story of Jesus’ love for us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 21, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

We were in one of those stores that sells miscellaneous products they somehow got for highly reduced prices.  We walked passed a stack of cans of dog food for a great price.  So I stocked up.  This was too good to by-pass.  There was just one huge problem.  Our dog hated it.  After one big eager bite she spit it out on the floor.  Wow, that had to be some really bad tasting stuff because this dog eats everything and anything.  What seemed like a great deal didn’t turn out that way.   How often have I purchased things thinking it was a marvelous deal only to discover later it wasn’t so great?  “Buyer’s Regret” is an ailment I have often tasted.

One of the things about accepting Jesus as one’s savior is there will never be “Buyer’s Regret.”   We might have a bad experience with a particular church or with a pastor but never confuse them with Jesus.  He was most likely more upset with those who mistreated us as we were.  Accepting Jesus is one of those rare experiences that keeps getting better as the years go by.   It is like opening a present to discover inside there is another present even bigger than the first and inside the second present is an even bigger third present and inside the third present there is an even bigger present and the experience never ends.  Jesus is eternal and our growth with Him is eternal.

I took the dog food back.  We never have to consider giving Jesus back.  After all we aren’t crazy.  Which leads me to think those who do walk away are either crazy or someone never told them the truth about what they were getting and they just didn’t understand how wonderful He is.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 20, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Last night all fifty states, even Hawaii, had at least one location that experienced below freezing temperatures.  Over the majority of the land white “sheets” have been pulled up and in some places there is so much snow one has to say white “quilts and fluffy comforters” have been pulled up tucking in the bears and beavers for a long winter’s rest.  Icy winds have stripped the trees of their leaves and now in their bare beauty we see their dark skeletons reaching up to the sky.  It’s a fine time filled with sleds, hot chocolate and fireplaces with crackling flames casting moving shadows across our rooms. It’s a time for coats, boots and gloves.  Earmuffs and parkas with fur collars tipped with frost surround our reddened cheeks.  It is entrancing to watch our breath swirl before our eyes. I miss the old single-pained windows that would frost up with Picasso-like crystal engravings.  It was such fun to put one’s finger into the window-art and watch it melt away only to refreeze when we withdrew our fingers.

Soon Thanksgiving will have come and gone.  We will be inundated with music and decorations reminding us that it is time to shop.  Sometimes I hear folks complain about the commercialization of the season, but I don’t mind. It is a good thing to be reminded that we should find something for those we love and for those who do things for us.  Giving is good for us.  Each gift given makes us more like the One who gave everything for us.  Each present bestowed says, “I appreciate you. Thank you for making my life better.”  It really is “the most wonderful time of the year.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 19, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Saturday morning our dog was tremendously roiled with the hair on her back standing erect.  Looking out the window I saw an absolutely beautiful red fox slowly moving through our woods.  Calling for my wife she came and was as pleased as I.  Suddenly she realized how clearly she was seeing it without her glasses.  Later that morning while driving to South Lancaster she said to me, “Look how green that field is.  It is so vivid.”  On Thursday she had had a cataract removed.

I immediately thought of a story in Mark 8.  “They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people; they look like trees walking around.’ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”

Before Jesus came people thought God was a capricious being that treated us with abandon to accomplish His will.  Jeremiah 18 talks of God being a potter that smashes us to pieces if He wills.  Then Jesus came and said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”   Jesus removed the cataracts from our eyes and we now see that the Father’s concern is always what is good for us.  He is not capricious.  He is as steadily good as anything can be in the vastness of the universe.  To the Muslim, God is great.  To the Jew, God was Holy.  To us, God is good.  Now we see.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

There are linguists who believe it is nigh unto impossible for us to express our inner most thoughts without the use of metaphors.  “I love you with all my heart” is one I hope you use often.  Our faith, our walk with God (there I just used one) is filled with metaphors. I was browsing a hymnal this weekend and noted “Far and Near the Fields are Teeming,” “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” Break Thou the Bread of Life,” “O, For that Flame of Living Fire,” “The Great Physician Now Is Near,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “Showers of Blessings,” “Sound the Battle Cry” “This Little Light of Mine,” and “We Plow the Fields.”

Jesus was a master of painting pictures to communicate great ideas.  The sawdust in one’s eye, the lost coin, the lost sheep, the light under a bushel basket are just a few.  I have noticed that I cannot really teach my students anything until I have metaphorized it.  Once I have done that in terms of something common in their lives I can then get them to see (yet another) it.

One of our challenges is to strive to be fresh.  Our experience can be so clichéd people stop listening to us.  I can remember being in church listening to a man who was well spoken but his well spoken, well articulated words and phrases were so clichéd, so old, they had been resoled a hundred times. (yet another)

It is human.  It is the way we think and process ideas. Great ideas are only great if we can communicate them.  Jesus speaks of heaven in terms that we can understand. That’s why Jesus said, “In my father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 17, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

My father wasn’t much of a handyman.  He was a school teacher.  That was what made his obsession with tools fascinating.  He loved to go to Sears just to buy tools.  He told me Sears had a lifetime replacement warranty on tools so those were the ones to buy.  You never knew when you are going to wear out a crescent wrench.  Most of what he brought home was never used.  But one never knows when one might need a super socket set. A man can never have too many tools.   The only tools my dad ever wore out were textbooks and other teaching tools.

In Ephesians 6 Paul speaks of military tools being used by Christians.  It’s interesting that he never used any tent-making analogies.  Jesus was well acquainted with tools from his carpentry years.  He did make reference to building on a rock or sand and He spoke about a man building a tower without doing a cost analysis.  He did speak about sawdust in your eye.  But He never did talk about His carpentry tools.  His new tools were His disciples.  If you are going to build the new kingdom it isn’t with an adz.  His tools aren’t saws and hammers they are you and me.

I like the idea of being a tool in the hands of the Master.  Maybe He needs you or me to do a very specific job just as some tools are very specialized.  Whatever it is I hope we do it well. As a result of my father’s tool obsession my shop area is well equipped.  There are some tools there I have no idea what they are.   But I have them just in case.  Perhaps Jesus keeps us ready just in case.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 13, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

This afternoon at Denny’s I watched a man order a breakfast special.  It came with a large stack of pancakes, a strip of bacon and a pile of scrambled eggs.   He was in my natural range of vision so I could watch as he put syrup on his pancakes.  Wow did he put on syrup.  He poured and poured and then poured some more.  He ended up with a little bit of pancake with his syrup.   Then he picked up the salt shaker for his eggs after he scarfed down his bacon.  He salted and salted and then salted some more.  He looked to be about my age and I could not imagine how he had lived so long if he always ate like that.  Then I thought maybe he is in his twenties and just looks my age.

When I pondered the definition of sin being anything that harms you or another, I had to conclude that I watched him sin.  But he would have said, “I didn’t break any of the Ten Commandments.”  And I would have said, “Yes, you did.  You were in the process of killing yourself.”  If we limit our definition of sin to the breaking of the Ten Commandments we have missed the principle under-girding the Commandments.  The principle is to do no harm.  He harmed.

So very piously I sat there mentally condemning this man while I thoroughly enjoyed my large chocolate milkshake down to the very last possible sip.  I am such a hypocrite.  Jesus would have said to me, “Judge not, that you be not judged.   Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 9, 2015

Spring of Life, PO Bo 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Old cigar boxes are wonderful because that’s where we can put all manner of useless stuff that’s too meaningful to throw away.  We have one containing some old political campaign buttons.   One says, “I like Ike.”   There is an Adlai Stevenson button, two Nixon buttons along with a Kennedy.

I had quite a debate once with someone who thought our memories would be wiped clean in heaven.  He based his position on Isaiah 65:17.  “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.”  I thought he was a bit nutty.  For what would be the use of this life and the lessons learned if we couldn’t remember anything?   The whole point of growing up is to learn and become a better person because of the mistakes and avoided mistakes of life.  If God was going to wipe our memories clean why not just start us out there and forget all this pain and suffering?

So what does Isaiah mean?  Have you ever had a great week somewhere that was so wonderful and so busy that you never even thought about anything else? It didn’t mean you couldn’t remember. You could if you needed to.  You just didn’t need to.  I actually think we get to have some of our meaningful useless treasures with us in heaven.  Cigar boxes filled with buttons and bows.  (My wife has her mother’s hair bow. It means a lot.)   But aren’t cigar boxes sinful?   No.  Things aren’t sinful.  People are.

Life is made up of memories.  The future hasn’t happened yet.  Now is but an instant.  99.999 percent of life is memories.  Without them we would be useless unprogrammed droids.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 11, 2015

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One of my favorite things to do for the state university where I teach is to supervise student teachers in our local public schools.  This morning I was in a third grade with twenty students at the beginning of the school day.  A voice came over the intercom from the principal’s office asking the children to rise for the pledge of allegiance.  Instantly the children rose to attention.  We faced the flag, put our hands over our hearts and together we said those wonderful words.  It was a good feeling.

I felt a bit sad for the children whose church forbids them from doing so.  It is their loss.  I do appreciate why their church takes that stand.  They feel they are breaking the first commandment to take the pledge.  However, the commandment reads, “Thou shall have no other gods before me.”  Please note the words, “before me.”  God is not saying we should not revere and honor other things.  We just should not revere them above Him.  God is to be first in our lives.  We can have second and third and fourth and fifth things in our lives.  While I pledged my allegiance to my country I was not disavowing that my God came first.  The pledge, thanks to President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, contains the words “under God”.   That means my pledge is under or lesser than my allegiance to God.

I wish the parents of the children who didn’t stand could understand that simple concept.   It would make their lives so much richer.  Then they could have that same wonderful feeling of belonging to a community larger than just the community where they worship.  It’s great to belong.  It is one of our fundamental human needs.  We were not made to be alone.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 13, 2015

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It was cacophony.  The sounds of rap music, if you can call it music, (Wow, am I ever old!) were coming from the speakers in the ceiling and some fast talking adman was hawking Golden Oldies CDs from Time/Life on a television in the corner.  Since I was in a doctor’s office I was guessing someone was conducting research on patients, because no civilized doctor would or could have tolerated the noise.  I tried my best to focus on just one but the other continued to be extremely annoying.

I should be used to this by now.  All my life I have had two voices in my head competing for attention and loyalty.  There are two small voices and they are not always so small for they sometimes roar for compliance.  One promises immediate satisfaction not worrying about tomorrow and the other promises delaying gratification for a quieter but quality life.  Sometimes temptation for the immediate looks so delicious.

When Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness did He hear two voices or three?  (His own, Satan and the Holy Spirit.)   Did Jesus need the Holy Spirit or because He was 100 percent God was He strong enough on His own?   I am going to assert because he was also 100 percent human He, like us, needed the Holy Spirit.  (See Hebrews 4.  Tempted such as we.)

If you also have a cacophony in your head claim the promise in James 1, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”   That way you will be strong enough to make the right decision.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 12, 2015

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org